Indianapolis Smart Growth

CAP:IC, together with the City of Indianapolis Office of Sustainability and the American Institute of Architects (AIA), is facilitating a significant, nationally recognized sustainable design workshop. The Smart Growth Renewal District is a planning initiative to explore how communities in Indianapolis can be revitalized in an ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable manner using the area around 22nd Street and the Monon Trail as a model.

The partnership was formed to facilitate a sustainability process awarded to Indianapolis through the AIA's Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT). SDAT, a national, competitive, community assistance program, focuses on the principles of sustainability. SDATs bring teams of volunteer professionals (such as architects, urban designers, planners, landscape architects, hydrologists, economists, attorneys, and others) to assist community decision-makers and stakeholders to help them develop a vision and framework for a sustainable future.

The Indianapolis SDAT will work with stakeholders to explore a model redevelopment district on the near-north side of Indianapolis. The proposal has its roots in a recommendation of the Indianapolis Green Commission, an advisory council to the mayor but garners its strength from an unparalleled convergence of issues and opportunities that lend themselves to being both place-based as well as transferable to the broader region.